How do you KNOW what you know?
Laurence Harrould - Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Recently I spent time with two men - Mr B & Mr K. Mr B is well read, knowledgeable on a very wide range of topics and a considered and deep thinker. Mr K is an alcoholic who had lost his business and family as a result of actions by his ex-wife.
On the evening prior to meeting Mr K, Mr B had been telling me about his childhood experiences of sexual abuse which he could recall in considerable detail - what happened, how he felt and how it subsequently impacted his life and relationships. Mr B explained that these memories had been suppressed until he had done a personal development program during which these past events had come to light. He had to deal with this experience without being able to confront the person/s involved as they were all now dead. When he raised it with his brother, his brother denied any knowledge or experience of anything similar happening either to himself or to Mr B. Mr B's view was that his brother was in denial and was suppressing this knowledge as he himself had done for many years.
When I met Mr K he was going through a major crisis - he had recently
found out that his 13 year old son had been sexually abused by his
ex-wife's boyfriend for 6 years. He was in an extremely distressed state. When we (Mr B & I) looked into the situation, as part of trying to support Mr K, we found that the events he was so distressed about never happened. His son is a bright, happy young teenager and the police were well aware of Mr K as this has happened before.
Now here's the thing: Mr B & Mr K both KNOW certain things have happened to them or to people close to them. However, in the case of Mr K, it turns out that this knowledge is a delusion of his own creating. Now, I would never suggest that Mr B is in the same category. However, it did get me thinking about how much do we really KNOW and how much is a creation of our own imagination to help us explain our behaviour, attitudes etc so that we can live with who we are and what we've done (or believe we have).
So how do we know what we know and is it real? I can't answer this question. What are your thoughts on this?
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NSW Hospitals
Laurence Harrould - Tuesday, December 23, 2008
As a result of internal bleeding I have just spent a few days in the Royal North Shore Hospital. It was an illuminating experience.
Having heard a great deal in the media about how bad the hospitals are I was, quite frankly, apprehensive. My anxiety did not last long though (thankfully).
On arrival by ambulance I was seen to immediately. The care and attention from doctors and nursing staff couldn't be criticised. They kept me well informed of what was happening, what they were doing and why. During my 4 day visit I felt this standard was kept up all the time as I went from emergency to Intensive Care then to the general ward.
What I experienced was a group of dedicated and compassionate people working under pretty terrible conditions. The building itself was rundown and clearly needing maintenance. But that wasn't the hard part of the job. Let's just step back a bit and have a look at the situation.
Most (I would venture to say 'all') people in hospital are stressed, confused, apprehensive, fearful and generally anxious. No matter what circumstances brought them there, they are worried.
Imagine for a moment going to work every day where your clients are demanding, wanting things done immediately (usually fairly unpleasant things) and not understanding that there are others who need your attention. How long would you last in a job like that? In addition, you often hear on the news how the organisation you work for is in crisis. It's hard not to feel that you have some part in that. And so you try to fight THE SYSTEM because the reason you're working in it is because of your caring and compassionate nature. So you're often portrayed as the enemy, wanting more pay and better conditions. Again, my question: how long would you stay there?
Yes - the hospital system is in crisis. But it's not the staff who are the problem. So what is?
The purpose of a hospital is to heal the patients. Unfortunately, the current system seems to be more focussed on the accounting rather than the healing side. In a place where the purpose is to heal I found it odd that the food being served to patients was not what you would expect a healthy diet to look like, let alone a healing one. Healing methodologies are restricted. It would be great to have access to acupuncture, homoeopathy, energetic healing, massage and all the other forms of healing which are now readily available everywhere except in hospitals. I believe introducing these techniques would improve the effectiveness of the healing process. Also, they would be very cost effective as they don't require expensive tools.
Imagine a hospital system based on compassion which gets back to its core function - healing. What would it look like?
There'd be a wide range of healing methodologies available suited to the condition of the patient. The food would be healthy and nutritious and the environment would be attractive and calming. Wouldn't that be a better place to work and to go for healing than the current environment?
What do you think?
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